Electronic Journal of Biology, 2015, Vol.11(4): 187-191 ISSN 1860-3122 - 187 - Genetic Potential, Variability and Heritability of Various Morphological and Yield Traits among Maize Synthetics Muhammad Ishaq 1,2,* , Hidayatur Rahman 1 , Ghulam Hassan 1 , Muhammad Iqbal 2 , Ibni Amin Khalil 1 , Sabaz Ali Khan 3 , Sheraz Ahmad Khan 1 , Rafiullah 1 , Jamal Hussain 3 1 Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics the University of Agriculture Peshawar, Pakistan; 2 Cereal Crops Research Institute (CCRI) Pirsabak, Nowshera, Pakistan; 3 Department of Environmental Sciences COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan. *Corresponding author. E-mail: ishaqaup@gmail.com Citation: Ishaq M, Rahman H, Hassan G, et al., Genetic Potential, Variability and Heritability of Various Morphological and Yield Traits among Maize Synthetics. Electronic J Biol, 11:4 Received: November 16, 2015; Accepted: December 11, 2015; Published: December 17, 2015 Abstract Breeders are interested in screening and development of open pollinated population in maize. In the current study a set of four maize populations, i.e. PSEV-3-2ES, Pop 2004-BS, Pop 2006 and Jalal 2003 were evaluated for genetic potential and variability. Breeding material was evaluated in randomized complete block design with three replications. Analysis of variance results showed highly significant differences (P≤ 0.01) for all the traits. The highest values for plant height (169.1 cm), ear height (75.13 cm), leaves plant -1 (11.33), flag leaf area (106.5 cm 2 ), grain rows ear -1 (13.67) and grain yield (5927 kg ha -1 ) were recorded for Jalal-2003. Broad sense heritability (h 2 bs) ranged from 0.29 to 0.95 for various traits. Among the tested populations Jalal-2003 proved to be superior for most of the traits studied. The present study revealed a considerable amount of genetic variation and heritability estimates that could be manipulated for further improvement in maize breeding. Keywords: Genetic potential; Genetic variation; Population; Variability; Heritability. 1. Introduction Maize (Zea mays L.) belong to family Poaceace and is primarily a cross pollinated species, a feature that has contributed to its broad morphological variability and geographical adaptability. It has a wide adaptation, and is able to grow in regions ranging from semi arid with annual rainfall of 20 to 25 cm, to those where annual rainfall may exceed 400 cm. Morphologically corn exhibits a greater diversity of phenotypes than perhaps any other grain crop [1,2] , and is extensively grown in temperate, subtropical and tropical regions of the world. The range of cultivation of maize crop stretches from 50° N 40° S latitude and at altitude from sea level to 3300 meters. In Pakistan, during 2006-07 maize was sown on an area of 1016.9 thousand hectares with annual yield 3037 kg ha -1 and average production 3088.4 thousand tons [3]. There is a great range of escalating maize production in the country with sole objective to achieve the level of self-reliance in food grains. The major limiting factor for low yield per unit area is the unavailability of suitable and inexpensive maize hybrids thus, forcing the farmers to plant open pollinated maize varieties or populations Among the various traits, grain yield in maize is the most important and complex quantitative traits controlled by numerous genes [4]. Yield being a complex trait, is considerably influenced by different contributing yield components like ear height, plant height and 1000-grain weight [5]. The yield of hybrids obtained from inbred lines that have high grain yield is high. Likewise, the yield of hybrids obtained from inbred lines that have low grain yield is low [6,7]. It was attempted to select hybrid maize parent lines that give the highest yield using discriminate analysis techniques [8]. Grain yield is directly and positively associated with ear weight and ear circumference. Improvements in yield can be achieved by selection for grain yield [8], plant height and ear height [9]. The additive genetic variance component is the most important component of genetic variability for all traits [8,10]. Genetic variability, which is a heritable difference among cultivars, is required at an appreciable level within a population to facilitate and sustain an effective long term plant breeding program. Progress from selection has been reported to be directly related to the magnitude of genetic variance in the population. Research Article